Learn to Play: Eclipse, Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Join us at Pandemonium for a special, 4-hour session to learn and play a modern classic! You’re especially welcome if you’ve never before played hobby board games (and are curious about where to start). Note that this is not so much competitive Eclipse as a chance to learn the game and see if it’s right for you; Eclipse is, at the end of the day, a game won through combat, but you don’t always have to fight each other to be competitive.

WHAT IS THIS GAME ABOUT?

“Tension and discord are growing among the seven major species and in the [Galactic] Council itself. Old alliances are shattering, and hasty diplomatic treaties are made in secrecy. A confrontation of the superpowers seems inevitable – only the outcome of the galactic conflict remains to be seen. Which faction will emerge victorious and lead the galaxy under its rule? The shadows of the great civilizations are about to eclipse the galaxy. Lead your people to victory!”  –Eclipse rulebook, p. 2

At its heart, Eclipse is a game of galactic hegemony where, whoever has the most points by the end of eight rounds, wins the game. Although points can be achieved through many means both aggressive and decidedly less so, victory will often go to the player who can develop and deploy their spaceships most shrewdly, both to claim star sectors and deter other civilizations from going after them. 

WILL THIS GAME BE FUN FOR ME?

Playing Eclipse is a bit like running four races at once, where players are constantly chasing after the limited, lucrative bits the game reveals at random each round (be that easy combat, high-value sectors, it-does-what-now?! technology, and game-changing discoveries in open space). Nevertheless, Eclipse lets you control the pace of your story unlike many other space-themed wargames. Want to chase one technology above all others? You can do that. Want to head in the opposite direction of everyone else and explore space? You can do that too (although you may not find much out there). Want to expand towards the center instead, but don’t want to fight people? Easy: just make sure you don’t connect warp portals between sectors (or make ships maxed out on shields and not much else).

 If that makes it sound like Eclipse has a lot going on, know that the game makes it manageable by collapsing that complexity into one central and intuitive economic mechanism. If your spaceships are the tools you use to claim victory points, your economy is the fuel, and how well you manage your revenue of the game’s three resources will correlate with how fast you can pivot to the changing environment.

That being said, Eclipse is a very random game, and although you can do a lot to adapt, there isn’t much of a catch-up mechanism if you get hit hard with bad luck at the beginning (especially because you can’t really steal victory points from other players). Nevertheless, we’ll be teaching the game, and that involves sharing a few strategies or odds along the way to help make it a fun experience for all around the table.

So if that sounds like something you’d want to try, do sign up for the event! We will cap the table at 6 players, but we need a quorum of three to run (so do sign up, if you’re able to attend; we will refund you if we have to cancel). 

Finally, why did we choose to demo this one? Last weekend, we ran Twilight Imperium, 4th Edition, and these two games are often compared and contrasted, due to their surface-level similarities. In the spirit of timing, we thought it would be a good opportunity to feature both in case folks were curious in seeing what the fuss was all about with either.

But as always, if extended spacefaring civilization gamers aren’t your cup of tea, please stay tuned to our Events Calendar for future events on Saturday and Sunday, our typical nights for games.

RULES FOR ATTENDING: 

• Proof of vaccination is no longer required. If COVID levels rise, masking will be required. We will make an announcement about this on our website and social media if re-instated. 
• Photos may be taken at events to be used in our social media or promotional materials. Please inform the staff member running the event if you do not want your photo taken.
• Advance online registration is required.
• Anyone not registered in an ongoing event will not be allowed in the event space to maintain capacity limits.
• Food is not allowed in our event space. Drinks are allowed.